Stashbuster Socks

I love the color combination of orange and raspberry. I am trying to use up some of my stash of discontinued yarns and I had both orange and raspberry in Elann's discontinued Devon sport weight yarn. I didn't have a full skein of either so I added some white and did an afterthought heel in case I ran out of yarn. The colors in this first photo are the truest.

For these socks I used the Waves pattern in More Sensational Knitted Socks, size 3 dpns, a CO of 60 sts, and a picot hem.  

I decided to stripe the heel in case I was running out of any of the 3 yarns. I held up the sock in progress to DH and asked him if he thought the striped heel made the socks look too crazy. His response? "Oh that ship has already sailed." I guess not everyone likes the combo of orange and raspberry! 

 

Check out the gorgeous orange/raspberry socks on the cover. I need to find more bright orange and raspberry colored yarns to make them.

My Week in Photos

The exciting news this week in New Mexico is that we saw cold temperatures that haven't been seen here since 1971. Accordingly we had two pipes burst; the first one flooded the lower level of the house (luckily I don't have carpet!) and then the second one burst after the plumber had been here and left. That time only the laundry room was flooded. All in all it was a rather drastic method of cleaning my floors.

In less dramatic news DH bought me a nook for Valentine's Day (the regular not the color because my eyes didn't want a backlit ereader) so I could read library ebooks. I still love my old Kindle 2 (on the right) which I will still use for cookbooks. The Albuquerque library has a nice selection of ebooks but I may also join the Free Library of Philadelphia for their larger collection ($15 a year for out-of-state residents, click the purple download media button to see their ebooks ).

 

I knit DH another pair of socks. This time I made the Pennant Socks from Charlene Schurch's More Sensational Knitted Socks. I used Elann's Peruvian Highland Sport and size 4 (US) dpns and cast on 60 sts.  And yes, unfortunately, DH wearing socks with sandals is a pretty common occurrence around here

I'm off now to finish my Colors of the Andes socks from Stephanie van der Linden's Around the World in Knitted Socks. I am using colors that remind me of Santa Fe.

Turkish-Patterned Cap

I ordered some of Knit Picks' Chroma yarn to test out for colorwork. This is the Turkish-Patterned Cap from Charlene Schurch's excellent book Hats On! I used size 4 (US) needles and Cascade 220 in black and Chroma worsted weight in the mid-winter colorway.

There is still a lot of the Chroma left (see above) so I think I'll also do some stranded fingerless mitts.

The single-ply Chroma was a lot softer than I expected although I wish it was more elastic.

This shows the colors the best. I only did one repeat of the chart before the crown decreases. The decreases are a bit confusing -  I started the decreases one stitch before the row marker for the beginning of the row.

Mosaic Socks

The January challenge for Sock Knitters Anonymous is mosaic socks. I used the 10 st. mosaic T-Pattern from Charlene Schurch's More Sensational Knitted Socks. My yarns are Knit Picks' Stroll Multi Paisley and Elann Sock it to Me in color 45130. I don't know why I don't do mosaic patterns more often because these were really fun to knit.

I couldn't find any smaller dpns than 3.0 mm so I did the 60 st. version of the socks. The looser gauge combined with the multi-color yarn made the mosaic pattern less crisp but I like the colors together.

Now to find a sock pattern to fit February's challenge - Man Socks!